In computer networks, information is conventionally transmitted in the form of packets. Information present at one site may be accessed by or transmitted to another site at the command of the former or the latter. Thus, e.g., if information is proprietary, there is a need for safeguards against unauthorized access. To this end, techniques known as packet filtering, effected at a network processor component known as a firewall, have been developed and commercialized. At the firewall, packets are inspected and filtered, i.e., passed on or dropped depending on whether they conform to a set of predefined access rules. Conventionally, these rule sets are represented in tabular form.
Typically, a firewall administrator allows broad access which is consented to from one side of the firewall to the other, but blocks transmissions in the opposite direction which are not part of an active network session. For example, "inside" company employees may have unrestricted access through the firewall to an "outside" network such as the Internet, but access from the Internet is blocked unless it has been specifically authorized. In addition to such a firewall at a corporate boundary to the Internet, firewalls can be interposed between network domains, and can also be used within a domain to protect sub-domains. In each case, different security policies may be involved.
In certain complex network protocols, separate, additional network sessions are required from the outside back to the user. One such complex protocol is employed by a service known by the trade name "RealAudio." Without special measures, the request for the separate session will be blocked by the firewall.
For such complex protocols, separate "proxy" processes have been developed to run concurrently on the firewall processor on behalf of the user. Proxy processes have also been developed for other special-purpose applications, e.g., to perform services such as authentication, mail handling, and virus scanning.
In the interest of maximizing the number of sessions which can run concurrently, since the capacity of a firewall processor to support concurrent processes is limited, it is desirable to minimize the need for proxy processes on the firewall. Such minimization is desirable further in the interest of over-all transmission rate, as passage of incoming data through separate processes tends to slow transmission down.